UK estimates put population aged 90 and over at 645,000
New official population estimates put the number of people aged 90 and over in the UK at 645,000 in 2025. The total was 3.1% higher than in mid-2024 and 55.2% above the figure recorded two decades earlier, underlining the steady growth of the country’s oldest age groups.
The figures also put the number of centenarians, meaning people aged 100 or above, at 16,400 in 2025. That was 20.2% higher than in 2015 and 89.8% higher than in 2005. Taken together, the estimates describe a population in which more people are reaching their nineties and beyond, while the shape of the oldest age groups is changing.
More people at the oldest ages
The estimates cover the UK population at mid-year 2025. They show that the rise in the number aged 90 and over has not been confined to a single year. In 2005, there were just under 416,000 people in this age group. By 2025, the figure had grown to just over 645,000.
Most people in the group remain in their early nineties. Those aged under 95 accounted for 77.6% of people aged 90 and over in 2025, compared with 79.7% in 2005. At the same time, the share aged 100 or above rose from 2.1% to 2.5%. These shifts are small in percentage terms, but they reflect an increase in the number of people living to the very oldest ages.
The long-term changes are largely associated with improvements in life expectancy and with historical patterns in births. The age profile also carries traces of earlier demographic events. A lower number of births during the First World War was followed by an increase in births afterwards, affecting the sizes of cohorts as they reached advanced ages.
The changing balance between men and women
Women still outnumber men at every age above 90, but the number of older men has risen faster. Men made up 34.1% of people aged 90 and over in 2025, compared with 24.4% in 2005. The estimated number of men in the group rose from a little under 102,000 to almost 220,000 across that period, more than doubling.
Over the same 20 years, the number of women aged 90 and over rose from 314,000 to just over 425,000. The difference in growth rates has narrowed the gap between the sexes at the oldest ages, even though women continue to form the larger share.
The pattern is also visible among centenarians. The estimated number of male centenarians grew from about 2,100 in 2015 to almost 3,100 in 2025. The number of female centenarians rose from nearly 11,600 to just over 13,300 during the same decade. Men represented 18.8% of centenarians in 2025, showing that women remain the substantial majority in this group.
Different rates across the UK
Wales had the highest rate of centenarians among the four UK countries, with 26.1 people aged 100 or over for every 100,000 residents in 2025. England had the second-highest rate, at 24.4 per 100,000, followed by Scotland at 17.1 and Northern Ireland at 16.2.
The overall UK rate was 23.7 centenarians per 100,000 people, up from 22.9 in 2024. Expressed another way, around one in every 4,200 people in the UK was aged 100 or above in 2025. The rate increased in all four countries compared with the previous year.
These are population estimates rather than a simple count drawn from one administrative register. The calculations use death-registration data and a recognised demographic method, then align the result with the wider mid-2025 population estimates for people aged 90 and over. Comparable statistics for Scotland and Northern Ireland are incorporated into the UK totals.
The new release offers a detailed picture of an age group that is growing in both number and diversity of age. It does not make projections about future population size or prescribe a response. Its value lies in establishing the current scale and composition of the UK’s oldest residents, using a consistent annual statistical framework.
